I recently installed Haiku on VirtualBox, and I decided to install some software. I visited all the major software sites for Haiku, then I realised something: all the software for Haiku is hopelessly outdated. I think that, unless a large development community starts developing up to date software, decent software for Haiku would become a lost art, killing Haiku’s popularity and eventually, the OS itself.
The French Rat
I guess the applications… are mostly waiting for R2.
I can’t await to see R1 finished and closed 
I think you missed a spot, the system is still alpha and every developer, who could be interessted in writing a application atm, is working on rough edges to bring Haiku to the next milestone.
You are right, most of the Apps we have from the BeOS-Era, are really really old, but nevertheless many of them are so damn cool! I think a really good IDE could could attract a few Devs, but to design & develop a fullfeatured IDE is a huge task…
With the recent changes to the file structure and the constant warnings that things can change most applications devs are waiting for a Beta release, indicating that the appi is stable, to really do any serious coding.